New York Comic Con saw the premiere of new grizzled Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance footage, including Ciarán Hinds done up like the devil and skulls barfing fire. Plus, find out how Crank directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor rebooted the Penance Stare.

The panel started with a collection of behind-the-scenes clips. Attendees saw extreme directors Neveldine and Taylor getting pulled my motorcycles on rollerblades while filming Nic Cage riding down the road on his hellish bike. There were also explosions, wire whips, and lots of other exceedingly dangerous stunts.

Cage appeared on screen and said, "Mark and Brian are both very camera-oriented — they really know how to work the camera." Cut to more wild shots of the directors filming off the edge of a cliff! It was pretty bad-ass, but I wanted to see the directors yell "parkour hardcore" after every ridiculous stunt. The behind-the-scenes footage ended with the promise of "Fucking Your Shit Up in 3D," which brought out a gleeful roar from the audience.

After the behind-the-scenes spectacle, the two directors came out and showed off a brand new (and pretty long) trailer. It did have a lot of the same scenes from the first trailer Sony released, but there were plenty of hidden gems we caught. Here they are:

- A gang of thugs start shooting Ghost Rider, over and over and over. One guy freaks out and runs up to his face and starts shooting right into his skull. Ghost Rider fire barfs all over him.

- Blackout made a two-second cameo in the traditional make-up.

- Lots and lots of motorcycle fights and gas explosions.

After the footage premiered, the directorial twosome were ready to field some questions.

Neveldine revealed what attracted them to Ghost Rider — simply put, "motorcycle, skull on fire." But they wanted to change the character. The directors didn't out-and-out bash the 2006 Ghost Rider movie, they just made it clear that they've taken the character to a different (and I think better) place.

And they didn't stop with the last movie, they wanted to update the character as a whole. "When [Blaze] becomes the Ghost Rider, spikes pop out of the jacket, it all felt a little 80s," Taylor explained. "What if the jacket was like a werewolf and it transforms from leather to this black bubbling tar?" "More visceral less Melrose," Neveldine chimed in.

The two seemed stumped on only one question, whether or not Ghost Rider could be considered a superhero. "He's not really going to put on tights and save your cat from a tree...his super power is he sucks your soul out, so that's weird." said Taylor. "He'll light your cat on fire," Neveldine added.

Apparently having Cage on set turned both directors into a couple of Cage fanboys, and they still couldn't believe they got to make a movie with Nic. Taylor admitted that when they were making Crank, Cage was their number one pick but they couldn't afford him. Thankfully it worked out well for them with Statham.

One thing they kept from the first film? The Penance Stare, which both fellas loved but of course they had to update it a little to fit with their new hellified version of Cage. "We use The Penance Stare in the movie, Taylor explained. "We really liked the idea of killing someone with their own evil deeds. The scene reenactments [in the past film] it was a little bit corny, so we wanted a great actor to be Penance Stared for the first time, we wanted it to be more performance-based. We always wanted it to be about two actors making you uncomfortable. If you're watching it you should almost feel bad for the bad guy."

And finally, from one of the Comic Con attendees:

What does Nic Cage smell like?

Neveldine: Cookies.

Taylor: Vanilla.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance will open in theaters on February 17.